I was thinking about the Spotify thing too. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young left in protest. But it all blew over. Does anyone know they are not there? I’ve been watching the Substack Nazi thing and have been curiously unmoved by it all. I’m Jewish. My father and Grandparents escaped the Holocaust coming to the US from Germany in 1938 (a year, I learned from Ken Burns, that only 10,000 Jews were allowed into the US by a White supremest congress), and I’m a US and Israeli citizen, having lived in Israel for a decade, decades ago. And I have to say the only thing that bugs me about this Substack Nazi shit is the weak response from the platform’s founders. Maybe a few more harsh words. Maybe saying they will donate proceeds they make from them to the anti-defamation league or some such thing. Otherwise I don’t care. And nobody knew they were here anyway until people starting posting about it and effectively doing their marketing for them. Shalom, thank you so much for putting my thoughts at ease. I’ve got a Substack with about 5000 subscribers. I have no intention of mentioning this debacle to my people and obviously I’m not leaving. I’ll just tikun my own olam. (Shalom, fun fact - you came to my bookstore, Breathe Books, in Baltimore, for Foreskin’s Lament in maybe 2007 or 8. You gave a fantastic talk!)
Yes I closed in 2014 after 10 years. While I had the shop I became an Ayurvedic practitioner and that kind of exploded and took over my life. I’ve written 3 books on Ayurveda now. The bookstore was great and thank you for your kind words but I was definitely ready to move on. It was a blast ( and I met my husband there!) and I loved hosting writers like you.
Agreed, regarding the platform owners response. When I started reading this piece, I had to double check to see if it was by one of the platform owners!
True. And if you don't mind my assumption based on your surname that we're of the same tribe, I'm afraid the blood of that word is on our hands at least as much as it is anyone else's.
Yep. Thank you for this. Same thing happened on Spotify -- all that those boycotts did was hurt independent musicians. No one else cared.
The only thing leaving substack does is make the people leaving feel momentarily self-righteous -- but only momentarily, until the next outrage when they need their next fix and more independent writers/artists/musicians get hurt.
“The six Nazis have a combined 29 paid subscribers.
There are at least 2,000,000 paid subscribers on Substack.
Thus .00145% of the paid subscribers on Substack subscribe to Nazis. If that’s enough to make you leave Substack, I suggest you leave Planet Earth while you’re at it. The purity you’re looking for doesn’t exist.”
THIS. You perfectly nailed my feelings on this (I just couldn’t figure out how to write them)
I love the way you showed how ridiculous the Nazi hysteria is. The numerical perspective is simple, to the point, and affection. Nazis aren't the problem on Substack. Substackers who wave a dismissive hand at the "freedom of speech" right we all take for granted and who trigger at a word in a headline that dips a salty finger into a personal wound. The labeling that occurs these days divides us in ways far more dangerous the handful of Nazis on Substack ever could. Simmer down, people. Substack is supposed to be a free and safe platform for writers of all kinds. If you don't like a person's work, don't read it. If you try to censure, cancel, exile, of otherwise deny any writer the right to express an opinion, you've just earned the top place on the list of assholes. Thank you, Shalom, for your essays on this topic. I hope it brings everyone to their senses.
The Atlantic hates Substack and did a hit piece. Not that hard to figure out. What’s hard to figure is how quickly smart humans fell for it without double checking themselves.
You are very accurate in what you write, as well as funny.
I live in Spain, where there has been a resurgence of extreme right-wing assholes lately. It's a scary thing, because we had a savage civil war a long time ago, but not that long ago: my grandparents lived through it. And we are scared, because we hear every day scary (and nasty) statments.
And we are calling "fachas" (fascists) those who really are, but also the thousands who are shouting those things, and who are just assholes.
That's why I've spent the last two days thinking about what term I could use in Spanish as an equivalent to asshole: something that doesn't refer to a person's intelligence, but to a combination of stupidity (which, I insist, is not related to intellectual level), beeing pathetic, and a desire to fuck things up. I think I've come up with it: mamarracho for men, mamarracha for women. It sounds undignified and it also sounds like someone who thinks they are more than they are. Assholes want to be villains, but they don't live up to it. Neither do the mamarrachos and mamarrachas.
I've started to use it already.
Thank you again. For the laughs, and for try to save the important words.
If the photos in this piece were shown to high school students during a history class (who knows if they even teach this anymore) - we wouldn’t have college students calling Jewish students Nazis. But maybe I am forgetting the asshole factor...
They do. Both of my sons went through primary and secondary public schools. The new hysteria about "public schools teach anti-Semitism" is more of the same as this. But what bothers me about these stories of high-schoolers saying anti-Semitic things or racist things is that --- they're HIGH-SCHOOLERS. They're assholes about EVERYTHING. And they're supposed to be, that the Asshole Phase, otherwise known as adolescense. For me, what's distressing about the college students is that they're supposed to be emerging from the Asshole Phase. But perhaps university life just prolongs it.
Remember when Substack was the literary Dark Web, populated by radical free-thinkers and shady heterodox types (i think that was what 6 months ago)? Then the virtue-signalling flock discovered it as a place where you could write pretty much anything and most of the people were pretty smart and considerate. And now they want to turn everything into oatmeal. Who would have imagined.
When people keep talking about substack making money off the Nazis I just want to groan and say “Can you please just say they make like $12 a month? Can you please just put the dollar figure on it, so people have some context.”
Your kind of the clearly seeing and sorting out the trees from the woods, in all their leaf by brilliant leaf glory makes me feel very healthy. Ahhh its lovely.
I was thinking about the Spotify thing too. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young left in protest. But it all blew over. Does anyone know they are not there? I’ve been watching the Substack Nazi thing and have been curiously unmoved by it all. I’m Jewish. My father and Grandparents escaped the Holocaust coming to the US from Germany in 1938 (a year, I learned from Ken Burns, that only 10,000 Jews were allowed into the US by a White supremest congress), and I’m a US and Israeli citizen, having lived in Israel for a decade, decades ago. And I have to say the only thing that bugs me about this Substack Nazi shit is the weak response from the platform’s founders. Maybe a few more harsh words. Maybe saying they will donate proceeds they make from them to the anti-defamation league or some such thing. Otherwise I don’t care. And nobody knew they were here anyway until people starting posting about it and effectively doing their marketing for them. Shalom, thank you so much for putting my thoughts at ease. I’ve got a Substack with about 5000 subscribers. I have no intention of mentioning this debacle to my people and obviously I’m not leaving. I’ll just tikun my own olam. (Shalom, fun fact - you came to my bookstore, Breathe Books, in Baltimore, for Foreskin’s Lament in maybe 2007 or 8. You gave a fantastic talk!)
Hi, Susan! That was a fantastic shop. But your bio says "owned" - please tell me it hasn't breathed it's last...
Yes I closed in 2014 after 10 years. While I had the shop I became an Ayurvedic practitioner and that kind of exploded and took over my life. I’ve written 3 books on Ayurveda now. The bookstore was great and thank you for your kind words but I was definitely ready to move on. It was a blast ( and I met my husband there!) and I loved hosting writers like you.
WELL THAT'S JUST GREAT, SUSAN! ANOTHER CLOSED BOOKSTORE, BUT AS LONG AS YOU'RE HAPPY!
Well it was basically a metaphysical bookstore, so was it really real anyway??!
Agreed, regarding the platform owners response. When I started reading this piece, I had to double check to see if it was by one of the platform owners!
Maybe they should learn what Nazis actually were, did and are before they start slinging the word around.
True. And if you don't mind my assumption based on your surname that we're of the same tribe, I'm afraid the blood of that word is on our hands at least as much as it is anyone else's.
We're talking about actual Nazis.
Yep. Thank you for this. Same thing happened on Spotify -- all that those boycotts did was hurt independent musicians. No one else cared.
The only thing leaving substack does is make the people leaving feel momentarily self-righteous -- but only momentarily, until the next outrage when they need their next fix and more independent writers/artists/musicians get hurt.
Let's stop the madness.
Thank you for this injection of common sense.
By the current measure there are far more 'Nazis' at Harvard.
True, but seven would be more. And I suspect they're more asshole than Nazi.
“The six Nazis have a combined 29 paid subscribers.
There are at least 2,000,000 paid subscribers on Substack.
Thus .00145% of the paid subscribers on Substack subscribe to Nazis. If that’s enough to make you leave Substack, I suggest you leave Planet Earth while you’re at it. The purity you’re looking for doesn’t exist.”
THIS. You perfectly nailed my feelings on this (I just couldn’t figure out how to write them)
I love the way you showed how ridiculous the Nazi hysteria is. The numerical perspective is simple, to the point, and affection. Nazis aren't the problem on Substack. Substackers who wave a dismissive hand at the "freedom of speech" right we all take for granted and who trigger at a word in a headline that dips a salty finger into a personal wound. The labeling that occurs these days divides us in ways far more dangerous the handful of Nazis on Substack ever could. Simmer down, people. Substack is supposed to be a free and safe platform for writers of all kinds. If you don't like a person's work, don't read it. If you try to censure, cancel, exile, of otherwise deny any writer the right to express an opinion, you've just earned the top place on the list of assholes. Thank you, Shalom, for your essays on this topic. I hope it brings everyone to their senses.
Exactly - “If you don’t like a person’s work, don’t read it.” 👏🏼
The Atlantic hates Substack and did a hit piece. Not that hard to figure out. What’s hard to figure is how quickly smart humans fell for it without double checking themselves.
This was brilliant 👏 🤣
And if your stats about Nazis on Substack are accurate, I hope this post goes viral.
I couldn’t agree more
oh my god, you are the best
Thank you, Salom.
You are very accurate in what you write, as well as funny.
I live in Spain, where there has been a resurgence of extreme right-wing assholes lately. It's a scary thing, because we had a savage civil war a long time ago, but not that long ago: my grandparents lived through it. And we are scared, because we hear every day scary (and nasty) statments.
And we are calling "fachas" (fascists) those who really are, but also the thousands who are shouting those things, and who are just assholes.
That's why I've spent the last two days thinking about what term I could use in Spanish as an equivalent to asshole: something that doesn't refer to a person's intelligence, but to a combination of stupidity (which, I insist, is not related to intellectual level), beeing pathetic, and a desire to fuck things up. I think I've come up with it: mamarracho for men, mamarracha for women. It sounds undignified and it also sounds like someone who thinks they are more than they are. Assholes want to be villains, but they don't live up to it. Neither do the mamarrachos and mamarrachas.
I've started to use it already.
Thank you again. For the laughs, and for try to save the important words.
(And sorry for my english. I'm still learning)
If the photos in this piece were shown to high school students during a history class (who knows if they even teach this anymore) - we wouldn’t have college students calling Jewish students Nazis. But maybe I am forgetting the asshole factor...
They do. Both of my sons went through primary and secondary public schools. The new hysteria about "public schools teach anti-Semitism" is more of the same as this. But what bothers me about these stories of high-schoolers saying anti-Semitic things or racist things is that --- they're HIGH-SCHOOLERS. They're assholes about EVERYTHING. And they're supposed to be, that the Asshole Phase, otherwise known as adolescense. For me, what's distressing about the college students is that they're supposed to be emerging from the Asshole Phase. But perhaps university life just prolongs it.
I laughed hardest at the Cookie Monster line.
Thank you for this brilliantly funny essay that makes a serious point.
Remember when Substack was the literary Dark Web, populated by radical free-thinkers and shady heterodox types (i think that was what 6 months ago)? Then the virtue-signalling flock discovered it as a place where you could write pretty much anything and most of the people were pretty smart and considerate. And now they want to turn everything into oatmeal. Who would have imagined.
When people keep talking about substack making money off the Nazis I just want to groan and say “Can you please just say they make like $12 a month? Can you please just put the dollar figure on it, so people have some context.”
Your kind of the clearly seeing and sorting out the trees from the woods, in all their leaf by brilliant leaf glory makes me feel very healthy. Ahhh its lovely.